Block 4 and the ECA – how was T320 in the end?

admin — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:58:00 +0000

It was in Block 4 that it really became a disadvantage to be taking the course in its first year, though I still think T320 (especially the e-business aspect) was one of the most interesting OU courses I’ve done.

The course was being offered over a compressed timescale (6 months instead of 9), and Block 4 coincided almost entirely with the school holidays, and required about twice as much computer based practical work as any of the other blocks. This made it very difficult to get all the practicals done in time to begin the project. Worse still, whereas all the other blocks had a TMA at the end, block 4 went straight into the ECA instead, with no opportunity to bring together the Block 4 material and get some feedback on whether we’d understood it properly, but a strong knock-on effect of the block 4 work on the final grade and, for many people, their degree grade.

So I stayed up late, I took days off work, my husband took days off work to mind the kids, and I struggled with the BPEL, but however much I tried I still can’t say I really understood it. There was also an unfortunate mix up, with new versions being issued of the ECA and work files when the first set were decided to be too difficult(!). So, along with several other people, I was trying to use the second set of files with the second version of the ECA, when it should have been the third set of files, which confused things more. I tried starting again with the practicals, and it took me until the last two days to figure out my problem with the wrong set of files. Briefly, right at the end I think I finally got it, but by then I was so tired and stressed I forgot it again afterwards.

In the end, I got the BPEL diagram finished, but didn’t get most of the testing done. After all that, I was surprised to find it was my report that was the weakest part of my ECA (probably needed more of that BPEL time!), though thankfully the XML, WSDL and Transaction Cost Analysis went well. And somehow, I did get the distinction I needed for my degree grade

I see the OU is now offering T320 as a full length course, and I think that is a much better idea. On the whole, I thought this course was great, and in contrast to most reviewers I massively preferred Block 1, with its focus on e-business concepts rather than technical implementations, so perhaps that is where I will go with this in future

ECA References and Links

admin — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:53:48 +0000

One of the tricky things about blogging about an OU course is that you’re not allowed to publish your actual assignments (or their course materials, obviously!) But this is the list of references I used in writing the ECA report. The ECA for my year was about using ebusiness technologies as part of a healthcare information management system for American-owned private birth centres in three locations in the UK.

References and Links:

American Association of Birth Centers (2008) AABC Uniform Data Set Features. [online, accessed October 2008] http://www.birthcenters.org/data-collection/features.php

BBC News (2008) Previous cases of missing data. [online, accessed October 2008] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7449927.stm

Coiera, E. (2007) Editorial: Lessons from the NHS National Programme for IT. Medical Journal of Australia. Volume 186, Number 1. 1 January, 2007.

Gritzalis, D. (2003) A security architecture for interconnecting health information systems. International Journal of Medical Informatics, Volume 73, Issue 3, Pages 305-309.

Heap, N (2008) Block 4, Part 4: Business Processes. In T320 E-business technologies: foundations and practice, course materials. Open University, 2008.

Making the Web (2008). Choosing Optimal MySQL Data Types. [online, accessed October, 2008] http://www.making-the-web.com/2008/04/27/choosing-optimal-mysql-data-types/

Martin, I and Einon, G (2008) Block 1, Part 6: The opportunities and challenges of e-business. In T320 E-business technologies: foundations and practice. Open University, 2008.

Moore, Michael (2007) MichaelMoore.com : SICKO : Michael Moore’s Health Care Proposal [online, accessed October 2008] http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/health-care-proposal/

National Literacy Trust (2006). Literacy and education levels by ethnic group. 20 most common languages in London schools, 2006. [online, accessed October, 2008] http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Database/STATS/EALstats.html#20languages

NHS: NHS Choices Web Services. [online, accessed October 2008] http://www.nhs.uk/nhscwebservices/Pages/Webservices.aspx

NHS Connecting for Health, Guidance on Ethnic Naming Conventions.

Sack, K. (2008) Obama’s health care pledges come under scrutiny. International Herald Tribune. July 23, 2008. [online, accessed October 2008] http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/23/america/health.php

UK Government Data Standards Catalogue (2002) NHS Number [online, accessed October 2008] http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/gdsc/html/frames/NHSnumber-2-0-Release.htm

UK Government Data Standards Catalogue (undated) Citizen Identification Types (XML Schema) [online, accessed October 2008] http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/gdsc/schemas/CitizenIdentificationTypes-v1-4.xsd

Wikipedia. Body Mass Index [online, accessed October, 2008] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index

T320 Ebusiness Technologies Blog » Block 4: BPEL and Project

Block 4 and the ECA – how was T320 in the end?

ECA References and Links